Britain has to step up fight against evil Islamic State

EVERY day the Islamic State plunges to ever deeper levels of depravity.

We must the evils of the Islamic State before they grow more powerful[GETTY]

The barbaric organisation has been responsible for some of the most grotesque images the world has seen.

However, it is the photographs of innocent children fighting on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq that is particularly chilling.

These youngsters should be at school, playing with others and looking forward to a bright future. Instead they are condemned to a fate that can only end in more bloodshed and degeneracy.

What kind of future can the seven-year-old Australian boy, who was photographed holding a Syrian's severed head, possibly look forward to? What kind of moral compass will he be left with if he is lucky enough to escape the brutal Caliphate? The Islamic State (IS) does not care.

It is merely using him and others like him as a tool in its propaganda war. And today's image of a young boy re-enacting the beheading of American journalist James Foley is no different. It is exploiting children to spread its evil message and is yet further evidence that IS is the most brutal regime on earth.

However, it is also one of the most sophisticated, which is why the clampdown by Twitter and YouTube on IS propaganda last week should be applauded.

More must also be done to prevent young people being radicalised in the first place. It is too late when the foreign fighters have left home soil. This is one area the FBI may be able to help, with its profiling systems helping to identify those at risk of being radicalised.

For those Britons already out there waging IS's evil war, it is too late. If they have abandoned the British state, then the British state should abandon them.

Stripping their families of their benefits is one way the Government can show its mettle.

GPs morale is down across the country and 54 per cent want to quit [GETTY]

We have seen vital mental health facilities across the land cut by the unforgiving axe of austerity and A&E wards filled to capacity and beyond

GPs struck down by politics

NEVER in the 66 years since Britain adopted its glorious and world-beating National Health Service have our resources been more stretched.

We have seen vital mental health facilities across the land cut by the unforgiving axe of austerity and A&E wards filled to capacity and beyond. Now family doctors are facing their greatest challenge.

In its latest survey of 1,000 doctors, the Royal College of GPs reveals that morale is so low, and feelings of stress and depression so rampant, that 54 per cent of GPs want to quit. More worrying still, 60 per cent of family practices have been unable to recruit new members over the past year.

Being short-staffed merely piles on the pressure for the remaining staff and so increases the odds of misdiagnosis and errors in treatment.

The problem, say doctors' leaders, is that while our ageing and less active population is making treatment and diagnosis more complex and demanding, with GPs now routinely examining 50 patients over an 11-hour day, funding is actually decreasing.

It is time to recognise that the mental and physical health of this nation cannot be subjected to short-term political targets that, in effect, leave the consequences to future governments to worry about.

London's new cubs are a fantastic addition to the animal family [GETTY]

Tigers are a roaring success

LONDON Zoo's prized litter of rare Sumatran tiger cubs is certainly proving a crowd pleaser, with more midweek visitors trekking to the new enclosure then there are tigers left in the wild.

For all the criticism against zoos, this is where they prove their worth. No amount of poignant adverts for the WWF can replace the experience for a child of seeing an endangered species. It is children who will hold the fate of these animals in their hands.